Major peptidoglycan transglycosylase activity in<i>Streptococcus pneumoniae</i>that is not a penicillin-binding protein

Abstract

As in the Gram-positive cocci Staphylococcus aureus and Micrococcus luteus, which divide in 3 planes, Streptococcus pneumoniae, which divides on 1 fixed plane, possesses peptidoglycan transglycosylase activity that lacks penicillin-binding activity as the sole detectable transglycosylase activity in vitro. The penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) in this organism did not show transglycosylase activity under the conditions in which the PBPs of Escherichia coli showed both transglycosylase and transpeptidase activities.